


Midnight Moonlight

by Skyson



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Daisy POV, F/M, Fate, First Meetings, connected
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2018-12-21 23:17:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11954757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyson/pseuds/Skyson
Summary: It was late the first time I saw him. Or early; depending on your shift. My shift? It was finally over.An AU Skoulson noir tale, told from Daisy's point of view. Think of a classic detective-noir, minus the detective occupation.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _I go out walkin’ after midnight_  
>  _Out in the starlight_  
>  _Just hopin’ you may be_  
>  _Somewhere walkin’ after midnight_  
>  _Searching for me_ \- “Walkin’ After Midnight”

* * *

 

It was late the first time I saw him. Or early; depending on your shift. My shift? It was finally over. These days Mack finally trusted me enough to leave me the keys to lock up Hope’s by myself - that’s his bar, _Hope's Pub_. Locals refer to it just as _Hope's_ , usually, and by now I’ve learned to do the same.

I got lucky with this job. Yeah, I work late hours (or early), but I prefer it. You really discover what a city is like once the sun goes down. And this city? It’s something else. Supposed to be one of the biggest cities in the area, but you wouldn’t know it just walking around. It somehow manages to hold onto that small town, familiar faces, everybody-knows-everybody feel.

Sometimes that’s not always a good thing. But I’ve learned to trust this town.

 

 

I love this city. It’s not quite the “never-sleeps New York”, and it’s definitely more blue-collar than Austin, but something about it drew me here. And keeps me here, day after day - along with my new friends, of course.

There’s Mack, my boss, the owner of Hope’s. He’s married to a Colombian woman that he affectionately refers to as “Yo-Yo”, for reasons unknown. I don’t see her often, but she seems nice enough. Her English is often interspersed with Spanish when I’ve heard her talking, but I think it’s more of a tactic of hers than any lack of knowledge in the English language. Sometimes she looks at me like she doesn’t quite trust me, or can’t figure me out. Makes me wonder if she’s ever been on the run, or in trouble, before.

Like recognizes like, after all.

Then there’s Hunter, the only true Irishman left working in this Irish pub, and his long-time girlfriend Bobbi. Hunter is obnoxious, sarcastic, and can come off as a little brash sometimes, and says he’s living up to the stereotype (he even boxes with our bouncer). I think the attitude is a cover, though, because I’ve seen him wasted, and he’s a total sweetheart. Bobbi, though - I’ve got to keep an eye on her. She’s kick-ass, almost professional level, and sometimes weeks will go by where she’s “out of town, traveling for work”. I still haven’t gotten a straight word from Hunter on what her job actually is. Even when I catch him after a few drinks, he’s still clammed up tight.

Also makes me wonder what she threatened him with if he tells.

Our bouncer is possibly the kindest bouncer I’ve ever met. I honestly don’t know how he does the job, but somehow he’s able to command the respect of even our most aggressive patrons. Then again, our bar is located just off the beaten path enough that we mostly get regulars, here. Folks that know that Jeffrey got into some rough stuff with the war overseas that he doesn’t like to talk about. The most I’ve been able to get from him is that he feels blessed to be walking and talking. Something tells me it’s bigger than he lets on; like Avengers big. My bet is on Sokovia, but I care about the guy too much to pry too deeply.

Not face-to-face, anyway.

Jeffrey moved here not long after being honorably discharged (though I’ve heard him mutter before that that is a laughable assumption; to think that Uncle Sam is done with you just because you’re done with him). He’s from New York, though, and that’s another thing he doesn’t go into detail about.

Really, he doesn’t go into detail about much anything at all as far as his personal life goes. The fact that I’ve found myself trusting him so easily should probably worry me. It’s impossible to deny his sincerity, in any case. Part of his job is to protect me, and it’s pretty apparent that he takes it very seriously.

Me, I’m the main bartender these days. Mack gave me the reigns about a month ago, which I guess makes Yo-Yo pretty happy, because Mack’s in and out of the place all the time now, not spending nearly as many hours behind the counter, and whenever I get a glimpse of Yo-Yo she’s always smiling.

I learned the basics of bartending back in Austin, and when I found myself here with barely a stitch to my name, Mack took me in and taught me more tools of the trade. Hired me as a waitress, at first, but quickly let me spend a few hours here and there behind the counter. One thing led to another… and now I’m here locking up the place, as Jeffrey waits patiently to walk me down the block.

He used to walk me all the way to my apartment, which as a kid who grew up mostly cruising with the “punks” and “street rats” of the day, it was really disconcerting. I eventually persuaded him that I could more than easily take care of myself, by sparring with him and thoroughly kicking his ass.

He made me promise to tell people it was after a minute of struggling, but honestly, I had him in under ten seconds. Sometimes street smarts overruled even all that military training.

 

 

He was a good-looking guy, in that mildly rugged Steve Rogers sort of vibe, and we’d even hooked up a few times, but we were just two lonely people looking for occasional comfort. Neither of us wanted anything that threatened permanency or long-term.

After parting with a warm kiss on my cheek and a hand on my back, I was a couple blocks further away from the pub when I started mulling over calling him on my cell and asking him to come over to the apartment.

And that was when I saw _him_  for the first time. Bumped into him, actually; me looking down at my phone like a dumbass, and him looking up at the sky, trying to see the stars through the haze of the light pollution for some ridiculous reason.

I figured I was weird enough by not uttering a word - I quickly stepped back out of his space, and just stared at him. It was fitting I guess, though, because he didn’t say anything either. Just stared back. And my, oh my, did he have the most gorgeous eyes. That was the first thing I noticed about him. Blue-green, and deep, like he was staring right into the heart of me. Like he _knew_  me, at first sight.

“I, uh, sorry,” He finally spoke eventually, his voice softer than I expected, those eyes of his crinkling in the corners as he smiled sheepishly. I knew then and there that I was screwed - my brain wasn’t gonna let go of that picture tonight.

I managed to mumble something comprehensible about how it was actually my fault, and I gestured stupidly with my phone, and after another now-heavily-awkward moment of quiet staring, I slipped around him and continued on my way home.

I could feel his eyes watching me as I walked away, but I refused to turn around. I was far too embarrassed because my floundering moment made me feel like I was twenty-years-old again, meeting Tony Stark for the first time.

(There’s another story to tell one day. And still, the man hasn’t quite figured out how I’d managed to hack my way in….)

I made it home without another incident, and honestly, running into a stranger on the street wasn’t all that uncommon. For some reason I couldn’t shake this guy, though. This… desire to get to know him, to understand him (because there was something unbelievable about him, I could _feel_  it in my soul).

Like recognizes like, after all.

I told myself I just needed a good lay, sometime soon, and then distracted myself with a few easy non-invasive hacks on the computer before I turned in.


	2. Chapter 2

I didn’t necessarily aspire to be a bartender. Computer coding is my main gig - I don’t tell people this and I definitely don’t reveal the entire extent of it, but, I’m pretty good. Like, hiding-from-the-government kind of good.

That’s how I ended up in this town.

That wasn't necessarily by choice, either, but when you've run away from enough places, you start running out of places to run to. It’s certainly not Austin, but it’s grown on me. The people, especially. I probably wouldn’t tell any of them this, but I’ve never fit in a place so easily and quickly, before. Almost like this was fate.

Speaking of fate… after a couple late nights working the bar, and boxing with Bobbi, Hunter, and Jeffrey, I forgot about my mystery guy. At least until I nearly ran into him again, almost in the exact spot as before.

“Hey!” Mr. Blue Eyes seemed surprised but kind of pleased to see me again. I offered him a smile, to be polite, not because his own was so infectious. Not at all that.

“Hi again.” I gave him a peculiar look, amused by his now apparent embarrassment.

“Another late night, huh?” He wondered casually, and I had to glance at my watch before I nodded. Just after 2am; same as last time.

“They usually are,” I replied ruefully.

“What do you do?” He wondered, and then grimaced slightly. “Sorry, is that - ”

“I’m a bartender.” I answer before he can stumble over himself. His smile looked mildly relieved, and also pleased? He must’ve been guessing at my occupation and got it correct. “So what explains your late nights?” I returned, inwardly kicking myself at the flirty tone that popped out of my mouth.

“I don’t sleep, much.” He shrugged, going for nonchalant, but the way he averted his eyes for a moment told me there was something a little more to that.

While he was looking away I took the opportunity to observe him more fully. Although he wasn’t quite as tall, or as broad-shouldered, as Jeffrey, there was a certain way that he held himself that made me think he was military - or used to be. With that suit and tie he looked more like somebody’s accountant, though.

Maybe he was CIA.

That brief thought put me a little more on edge, and my shoulders tensed as I started subconsciously going through the routine of what I would say if he started asking more questions.

“Besides,” He added with a bit of a sly smile toward me, now, “I believe that a city can reveal it’s true nature after the sun sets.”

Well, I certainly didn’t expect that. I found myself nodding in agreement as I only grew more curious about him. What kind of accountant cared about a city’s secrets? And why the hell was he voicing _my_  opinions? Has he been spying on me, or is this just coincidence?

I resolved to continue chatting with him to see if I could get anything else out of him.

“Do you work at one of the local bars? Or take the bus into the city?” He wondered innocently enough, but I raised my eyebrow at him anyway.

“You gonna start stalking me?” I half-joked. I’ve dealt with my fair share of creeps over the years, and this guy wasn’t giving me that vibe at all, but still, I didn’t know anything about him. What little I _did_  know seemed way too similar to my own habits to make me comfortable.

“No,” His lips thinned and his cheeks tinged red as he shook his head. “No, of course not, that’s not what I - I mean, I might just run into you sometime.” A beat of silence passed between them. “Other than on the sidewalk, I mean.”

“You go to bars often, huh?” I couldn’t entirely hide my smile as he blushed further. No way a spook was _this_  transparent with his facial expressions.

“Well what else is open at this hour? I don’t always want a waffle at one in the morning, you know.” He muttered, making me laugh. He seemed to brighten up a bit at that, and I decided it was time I continued on home. It’d been a long day, and I had some things I needed to do tomorrow before my next shift at Hope’s.

I didn’t feel right just leaving with a meager polite smile, though.

“Well, if you do get thirsty before 2AM, then perhaps I will see you somewhere other than the side of the street.” I teased, giving him a little lofty smile before I headed on toward my apartment building. I only managed a few steps before he called out from behind me,

“Wait, you never said where you worked!”

I smiled to myself, before turning around and calling back,

“Well now that just makes it too easy!”

 

 

No matter how many times I told myself that I was being an idiot, I kept finding myself watching the door to the pub the following day. It was enough that Hunter, the most unobservant out of the bunch, even noticed.

“Who’re you waitin’ for? Steve Rogers to strut through the door?” Hunter teased, slipping into one of the bar stools and leaning one elbow against the countertop.

“Nobody.” I replied calmly, immediately turning to grab a towel to wipe down the bar. We’d just survived the after-dinner rush, and there were only a few more hours until closing. No way I would ever tell these guys I’d spent the whole time keeping an eye on the room, looking for a specific blue-eyed man.

I was frustrated with myself for even caring, really. What was it about this guy that I just couldn’t shake?

I decided then and there, regardless of whether he showed up tonight, that I would spend my day off tomorrow digging up whatever I could find on the guy. (Probably wouldn’t be much. I don’t even know his name. But the great thing about living in the city and being a hacker? Cameras on the street corners.)

“You got a date?” Hunter perked up, leaning more in my direction. I rolled my eyes and pushed him back, pointedly wiping off the counter where he’d been resting his arm.

“No.”

“Well you should.” He replied matter-of-factly, dutifully sitting up in the stool and removing his limbs from where I was trying to clean. “Something other than Dark And Broody over there,” He jutted his head toward the booth near the door where Jeffrey was momentarily taking a rest off of his feet.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes again, just barely.

Thankfully, Hunter let it go soon enough. Worked picked up again after a bit, and then it was last call, and then I was locking up, Mack and Jeffrey having a chat in the parking lot. I waved goodbye and headed home without waiting for them to finish, somehow uncomfortable with the idea of running into Mr. Blue Eyes with either Mack or Jeff by my side.

The sidewalks were completely deserted though, and I even admittedly walked a little slower as I got further and further away from the ‘usual’ meeting spot. (Did two occurrences even count as ‘usual’?) I was being ridiculous.

Nevertheless, my paranoia and self-preservation had me hooking up a hack to get into the city security cameras and keep my own computer hidden in the process. It would take a few hours to get into the feeds, so I let it do it’s thing while I slept.

 

 

I spent my day off drinking coffee, watching hours of boring footage, and marking up a local map I’d bought at the gas station from down the block.

What I ended up with surprised me, and created far more questions than it answered.

I had a few options in front of me, now. I could call him out directly; ask him if he was FBI and I was his mark. Or, I could wait it out a bit, see if he makes contact with me again, and see what he decides to talk about next. Or, I could pack my bag and get out of town today, leaving a note at the bar for the gang… no, I couldn’t do that. Against my self-preservation, I’ve grown rather attached to Hope’s, it’s employees, and even some of it’s patrons. I didn’t want to leave that bar any more than I wanted to leave this town.

Thinking of those blue eyes again, I decided on option two.


	3. Chapter 3

A few more days went by without any sign of Mr. Blue Eyes, so I figured it was just a Random Occurrence of Weird and put it out of my mind. (I still kept the disconcerting map I’d drawn out, though. Just in case he ended up being a spook or something.)

Yo-Yo - her real name was Elena - spoke interest in helping out at the bar, and it turned out (as I’d expected) that her English was pretty damn perfect. She had no problem understanding it, and she only misinterpreted a couple words every now and then when she was speaking.

Mack asked me if I could help her out behind the bar, and soon enough she started working her own shifts earlier in the day.

She was incredibly fun, actually, and I found myself looking forward to the busier days when we would both work the same shift to help one another out. We had the same sense of humor, and she even taught me a few of the dirtier insults in her first language so we could mutter them to one another whenever we had an annoying patron to deal with.

I honestly was no longer expecting to run into Blue Eyes again, but then, one Friday night, there he was. Leaning against the wall of a store-front near “our corner”, his hands stuffed into his pockets as if it was normal for him to just be hanging out there alone.

Maybe it was, what did I know?

“Well, well.” I mused as I approached him, giving him a once-over as he pushed himself away from the wall and stood straight. Was he tanner? Pretty sure he looked tanner. And he had a smattering of stubble on his face.

Well, damn.

“Hi.” He greeted shyly, which told me that he must’ve been waiting for me, and wasn’t certain that I would show up. So maybe he wasn’t directly spying on me? That kind of made me feel a little bad that I’d spied on him.

But only a little. I hadn’t survived relatively on my own since sixteen by being a dumbass that hangs out with complete strangers all the time.

“I was worried maybe you’d moved,” I teased, pretending that I thought he lived somewhere nearby. “Or I’d scared you off with the stalker comment.”

“Just had to go out of town for work.” He replied cryptically, making it sound so casual, his hands still in his pockets.

“What is it you do?” I asked, figuring it was appropriate since he knew of at least one of my jobs.

“I’m a consultant,” He shrugged, a self-deprecating smile on his face. “Not as fun as bartending, I know!” He joked, and I laughed lightly.

Consultant, huh? Alright, I’ll go along with it.

“That explains the suits,” I teased, and as if he were suddenly self-conscious, he brushed one of his palms down the front of his tie.

Those didn’t look like cheap suits, either, now that I was paying closer attention to them.

And my oh my, he looked rather fit beneath the cut of that dress shirt. From what I could tell, anyway. Not that I was looking  _that_  closely.

“How was work, today?” He asked, looking me in the eye, seeming as if he honestly wanted to know.

So I told him.

And we started walking.

And before I knew it, it was four in the morning, and we’d meandered our way all the way down to Main Street and back. We were getting dangerously close to my apartment building, now, and I was both worried about him knowing where I lived (various alphabet soup agencies fluttering around in my head) and worried about him now having to walk all the way back to his own apartment.

Which I knew was almost thirty blocks from ‘our corner’ - three miles. This guy walked six miles a day, at least, just to meet up with me? Or was I being presumptuous? He walks almost an hour out of his way to hang out on a street corner in hopes of running into me? There’s gotta be something more to this. And yet during our two hours of chatting, he never said one thing that threw up red flags for me.

Sure, he withheld a lot, but then again so did I. We were just two strangers getting to know one another. Even if he _wasn't_  working an angle here, our conversation probably wouldn’t have been much different.

I wanted to know, though, if I was being played here. So I figured I could try and catch him in the lie.

“Would you like a drink?” I asked.

He blinked at me, more than a little surprised by the question, and was suddenly nervous again, like he had been the second time we’d met.

“I… isn’t your bar closed, by now?” He pointed out, glancing at his watch.

“It is. But I have beer in my apartment.” I replied casually, but paying close attention to the nuances of his expression. “Or scotch, if that’s more your style.”

“Oh.”

That was it? ‘Oh’? Okay, man, make me do all the work….

“Unless I’m a job, and you’re not supposed to get too close.” I joked, grinning, but watching him like a hawk. He swallowed hard, and pursed his lips.

“Of course not.” He protested, chuckling, “What do you think I am, a cop?”

“Not with a suit like that,” I shrugged, going along with the joke, putting a little disappointment in my tone as I added, “Okay. Don’t worry about it, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything. Sometimes…” I considered my words thoughtfully, because I meant them, “We just need somebody to have a walk with after midnight, right?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to.” He blurted, immediately turning red afterwards, and I couldn’t help my eyebrow from shooting up on my forehead. “I don’t,” He glanced away, laughing that self-deprecating chuckle again, “At my age, I don’t really do hook ups any more.”

I looked at him for a long time, and he didn’t quite look back at me.

“At your age?” I repeated. “You make it sound like you’re ancient.”

“I don’t even know your name.” He pointed out softly, taking me by surprise.

Damn, he was right. We’d been talking for hours, about jobs and friends and a little vague histories - but we’d never got around to sharing our names.

I was losing it. This was it - this was the moment I was finally going to be caught and arrested. All because of a guy in a nice suit with nice eyes and a nice smile and a really weird unexplainable connection.

I smiled softly, and held out my hand toward him.

“I’m Daisy.”

His eyes softened as he looked at me, slowly grasping my hand, holding it more than shaking it as he repeated my name.

As if he hadn’t known it before. (Maybe my paranoia was getting the better of me? I still haven’t found any real reason to think he was some type of undercover agent. Of course he didn't know my name before I told it to him.)

And damn, did my name sound good coming out of his mouth. I even held my breath for a second.

“Phil.” He introduced himself, his fingers tightening just a little around my palm.

“Hi, Phil.” I copied him, speaking just as gently as he had. Those eyes of his crinkled in the corners as his smile widened, and fuck it all, I really was done for.

 

 

We were quiet as we walked the rest half block to my apartment, and as I unlocked the gate, and as I led him up the stairs to my door. My building housed various people of all ages, but they were all late-morning risers, so I always had to be careful coming home after work.

I could barely hear his footsteps behind me, which should have probably put me on edge, but it didn’t. I knew he was there, but he was also keeping his space, not crowding me. Being respectful, even - which made me even more curious about what would happen once that door shut behind us.

Would I have to put my fight training to the test, or what? Because the fact that I felt I could trust this guy put me on edge more than if he’d just outright made me uncomfortable. But he didn’t, and here we were, standing together in the front hall of my apartment, now shut in from the rest of the world, the darkened apartment making it difficult to distinguish his expression.

He waited in the hall as I locked the door and flipped the switch on, the lights dimming and growing brighter slowly. (I’d asked Mack to install them that way on purpose, so I didn’t blind myself every time I came home after walking through the dark night after work.)

I leaned back against the closed door as I looked at him. He seemed vaguely nervous again, but not as much as before.

“Phil?”

“Yes?”

As if this was all normal, and he’d been here before, and we’ve done this before.

“Were you really looking forward to those drinks, or could we maybe skip that part?” I asked. I figured we were either headed toward the bedroom, or I was headed toward handcuffs.

Which, thinking about it, handcuffs could be a probability either way… alright, slow down, Daisy.

His tongue trailed along his bottom lip, and he took a moment before answering. I stared at it while I waited.

“We could skip that part.” He eventually agreed, nodding.

I didn’t end up in handcuffs that night, but neither did we make it to the bedroom.

Phil didn’t even make it out of his clothes (which ended up being pretty damn erotic, anyway. That suit _was_  as soft as it looked).

The hall led immediately toward the kitchen, and the living room was just beyond that, but I guess couches weren’t his thing either because I ended up on top of the counter next to my sink, my boots and jeans on the floor and my underwear who-knows-where.

He let me push his jacket off and pull his tie loose, but he noticeably tensed up when I started unbuttoning his shirt, so I didn’t force the issue. I wasn’t about to make a big deal about a quickie in the kitchen. I just moved on toward the important bits - his belt and trousers - and his fingers brushed against mine as he hurriedly tried to help out.

He was kind of shaking a bit, like he hadn’t done this in a while, almost frantic in a way. I tried to kiss him a little slower, calm him down, and it seemed to help some. I let him put his tongue inside my mouth as I slipped my hand inside of his pants, coaxing him into readiness before wrapping my legs around his thighs.

I had to let him go when I told him about the condom in my jeans pocket, and he quirked that eyebrow at me again as he bent to retrieve it. Obviously I wasn’t going to tell him that I carried it around just in case I considered hooking up with Jeffrey after work. I wasn’t as promiscuous as that comment sounded in my head, and I didn’t want Phil thinking I was, either. Which was somewhat ironic, considering we were hooking up after knowing one another a total of, what, eight hours?

For a first-time quickie, it honestly wasn’t half bad. Although possibly out of practice, he definitely knew what he was doing, and the way he bit his lip just before he came really got to me, for some reason.

How the hell was it possible for this guy to be adorable and sexy at the same fucking time?

He kept moving those hips until I came too, my hands clutching his shirt as he braced his palms on the countertop behind me. He breathed my name against my neck, almost reverently, and the resulting tingle under my skin was not a bad feeling in the slightest.

Neither of us moved as our chests heaved, trying to catch our breaths. The silence was heavy, but it wasn’t awkward, at least not until he’d removed the condom and I had to tell him where the trash can was.

We both seemed to simultaneously remember that we were still rather very much just acquaintances, and he buckled his belt as I slid off the counter to look for my underwear.

I handed him his jacket, but he hesitated when he grabbed onto it, just staring at me for a lingering minute. Maybe it was the lighting, but his eyes seemed a shade lighter than usual (did I really know ‘usual’, with him, anyway?) They were still soft, though. Too soft.

“You want that drink?” I asked him quietly, wanting to be polite. He made me feel good, really good even, and as much as this _was_  a hook up, I didn’t really want to treat it as such.

“Maybe later,” He replied, and it sounded like he really meant it, his voice even softer than his expression. It was tinged, now, with my knowledge of the sound of how he grunted, and I wondered if he could tell that I was blushing.

He pulled his jacket from my hand, finally, and I followed him to the door as he slipped it on. The way he straightened the lapel kind of made my skin tingle, too, but I ignored that.

“Hey,” I stopped him quietly, aware of my sleeping neighbors especially now that the door was open. I halfway attempted to hide my pants-less state behind the door, leaning out so I could see him. He’d only taken a step or two, and immediately stopped and turned back around to face me. “That was… good, right?”

I honestly had no idea what I was asking about. Was it a good idea? Was it good sex, in the generalities of first times? Was it good for him?

“It was…” He trailed off, and then smiled this lopsided grin that made me feel like I would never move from this spot in my hall ever again. “Good.” His tone definitely said more than ‘good’.

Then he walked away, backwards for a few steps so he could keep looking at me, before turning and disappearing down the steps.

I don’t know how long I stood there in my underwear with the door open, but I had to have gone to bed at some point, because my next real coherent thought was having to shut my alarm off and get ready for work.


	4. Chapter 4

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t bothered when I didn’t see Phil again for a while after that. The feeling that he was more than just a random stranger had only increased after our hook up, but no matter how much further digging I attempted, I couldn’t find any information on the guy.

I mean, _nothing_. Zilch. My new assumption’s that he’s WITSEC, but even those guys leave some sort of pre-program trail. Nobody is this nonexistent.

Nobody but me, anyway - and that’s because I did the job myself.

Eventually, the mysteriousness of the thing overrode my own disappointment, and I stopped musing so much over lopsided smirks and blue eyes. Even if Phil was in the Witness Protection Program, that still made him potentially dangerous to me. Perhaps it was better that he’d moved on.

I didn’t even realize just how many weeks had gone by until the door opened one Sunday afternoon after we’d closed early. The bell jingled above the door and Jeffrey turned around in the barstool he’d occupied.

“Sorry my friend, we’re closed.” He called out toward the door, as I muttered under my breath annoyances at Hunter for not locking the door as I’d asked him to.

I glanced up from the line of various drinks I was working on with Elena, and admittedly did an actual double-take when I realized who it was standing in the doorway.

“Phillip?!” It was Jeffrey that spoke in surprise, and I turned my incredulous expression in his direction.

He _knew_  him?

Phil froze, clearly surprised as well, and he looked like he was considering turning around and walking back out.

I put the bottle of vodka down and rounded the bar quickly, standing in the middle of the room, between the two men. Jeffrey hadn't actually moved from his seat, yet, and I wasn't getting the impression that he was threatening Phil, but nevertheless, Phil looked like he felt threatened.

Now that he was standing in front of me, hell if I was going to let him disappear again. Especially after that reaction from our security man.

“You found me!” I said, too brightly, wiping my hands on my jeans. Phil finally focused his eyes on me, and that deer-in-the-headlights look waned some.

“Yeah, I…” He trailed off.

“You two know each other?” Jeffrey wondered, getting to his feet now. I felt his presence just behind my right shoulder - he was putting on his military stance, and I wasn't sure why. He usually reserved that for unruly patrons.

“ _You_  two know each other?” I returned wryly, giving him a look over my shoulder. Jeff pursed his lips for a moment, and looked back at Phil without answering me.

Kay, weird.

No one spoke for a long, heavily awkward minute.

“Oookay,” I turned back toward the bar, where Elena was watching us all quietly with an interested expression. “Scotch?”

“Please. Neat,” Phil breathed out, almost immediately. The mirror behind the bar provided me a view of how Phil glanced hesitantly toward Jeff before stepping around him, and carefully slid onto a stool.

A moment later, Jeff reoccupied his previous seat, though he was much more tense than he had been before Phil walked in.

“It took me three tries.” Phil admitted while he watched me pull out a clean glass and pour two ounces into it.

Which still didn't exactly explain the _weeks_  I hadn't seen hide or tail of him, but, I still couldn't help but preen a little at the fact that he'd hunted me down.

Hell - he very well could still be cop, tasked with _hunting me down_  and taking me in. What the hell was wrong with me, seriously?

“How do you know each other?” Jeffrey wondered more carefully, his tone not nearly as incredulous as it had been.

“We ran into one another on the street,” I answered rather blasé, waving it away while I placed Phil's glass on a napkin and slid it in front of him. “How do _you_  know one another?”

Jeffrey glanced at Phil briefly before answering her with a shrug.

“We worked together a few times. Overseas.”

“Shit,” I exclaimed before I could shut my big mouth, “you _are_  CIA.”

Phil immediately set his glass back down before he had taken a drink, and guffawed at my comment. I frowned at him.

I tried to picture him in uniform, like I'd seen photos of Jeffrey in, but it just wouldn't work in my brain. Even now, he was in a suit, albeit looking a bit more rumpled today than the last time I saw him.

Well - exhausted rumpled, not just-had-sex-on-a-kitchen-counter rumpled.

I quickly turned my back to them, feigning wiping down the shelf as I vehemently tried to stop thinking of sex on my kitchen counter.

Phil's eyes were as kind as I'd remembered, even underneath all the wariness he was projecting. And I was seriously _glad_  to see him, as if we were old friends. I don't often have flings, but I'm always careful not to get too attached. I have no idea what it is about this guy that makes me just… _crave_  his presence.

“What brings you to this town?” Jeffrey asked, his tone a little gentler now.

Okay, that confirmed Phil wasn't from around here, either.

“I'm not going to sit here and offer you a job, if that's what you're worried about,” Phil promised, vaguely amused. Jeffrey relaxed significantly.

No way in hell Phil was just a ‘consultant’, with a comment like that.

“I honestly didn't know you were here. The coincidence is… unnerving.” Phil admitted, and Jeffrey huffed and raised his eyebrow.

“You're telling me.”

Jeffrey wasn't as on edge as he had been, but he still seemed suspicious, and I didn't ignore the fact that Phil hadn't actually answered his question yet.

“You really ran into one another on the street?” Jeff asked me dubiously.

“Crazy small world, right?” I laughed lightly, hiding my internal freak-out rather well in my opinion. I don't believe in coincidences. Ever. And this was turning into a bit of a shit-storm of ‘em.

I glanced at Phil; he was watching me closely. He nodded slightly, and I took that as his agreement to follow along with however I spun our… acquaintanceship. He pulled his glass up to his lips and I tried not to stare too much as he slowly tasted his whiskey. He nodded again, in appreciation, and again I found myself preening a little.

Dammit, Daisy.

“When was this?” Jeffrey wondered, his tone casual, but I knew better once I watched him look down at his glass of water and finger the edge of the napkin beneath it. It was damp with condensation from the sweating glass, the fibers pulling apart easily beneath his busy fingers.

“A couple months ago,” I answered him, tossing him a new, dry napkin.

“Dark and Broody is jealous,” Elena murmured in my ear as she reached for the cleaning rag I'd been using. I tensed and narrowed my eyes at her. She's been spending too much time with Hunter.

But I noticed Jeffrey looking sideways at Phil, and I knew that it wasn't quite jealousy Jeffrey was showing. He was being protective. He's said more than once that we were his team, and he took looking after us just as seriously as he'd taken looking after his squad in the military.

He knew something about Phil, something that made him not like the fact that Phil and I were on friendly terms.

Whatever that something was, I should probably figure out a way to pry that knowledge out of Jeffrey without giving myself away in the process.

“How much?” Phil murmured, jutting his chin toward his drink while he shifted his hip to reach into his back pocket.

“Eleven-fifty,” I replied, glancing sideways at Elena when she raised her eyebrow at me.

Sure, I'd given him some of our good stuff; the aged Makers Mark, but I wasn't going to ask the guy for fifteen-sixty. I planned on taking it out of my own pocket. Call it a gift.

(Call it “Daisy can't keep her head on straight whenever this guy’s around”. _Damn_.)

Phil seemed to know better, anyway - he gave me a teasing, wry look as he put a twenty on the bar top.

“Need anything else?” Elena wondered, noting the bill. Phil shook his head in the negative.

“This tastes more like the forty-five dollar bottle of whiskey as opposed to the thirty.” Phil grinned at the press of my lips. “Call the rest a tip.”

“Know your whiskey, huh.” Jeff mused as he sipped his water, and Phil smirked at him as he swallowed some more of his own drink.

“You know I do.”

Jeff smiled an odd little reminiscent smile toward his water glass. Before I could even start thinking too hard about that expression, Phil spoke toward me,

“Thanks for giving me the good stuff,” Phil saluted his tumbler in my direction, and I gave him a little smile before I entered his pay into the machine.

“You sure you don't want anything else?” I checked.

“Maybe some time with the bartender when she's free?” Phil flirted jokingly, and Elena leaned her elbows on the counter as she held her hand out toward him.

“I'm Elena.” She introduced herself with a smirk, and Phil laughed, slow to drag his eyes away from me before he focused on my partner and shook her hand.

I warmed at the sound of his laugh and I hated myself for it. Watching Phil goof off with Elena, though, filled me with a sort of happiness that was unsettling. It was the same feeling I got when Mack and Hunter sassed one another, or when Jeffrey and I would tag-team against Hunter during our sparring sessions.

It almost felt like Phil fit into this ragtag little family. That the weird connection wasn't only _me_. It was all of it.

Freaky.

At least it was obvious to me that Jeffrey found this all super weird, as well.

Jeffrey was pursuing his lips at me, now, a clear disapproving look on his face. He didn't want me to be alone with Phil, and  _now_  the jealousy was in the forefront.

But Jeffrey and I had long ago agreed that we didn't have a claim on one another. We were friends who sometimes hooked up out of loneliness. He didn't want anything stable any more than I did, and we _had_  talked about it. Those lines included not getting jealous over one another, which hadn't ever been a problem before.

I narrowed my eyes at him slightly, but he didn't say another word until we were locking up the building.

“See you later, chica!” Elena waved a little at me as she walked to her car, a cheeky look on her face as she glanced between me and the men standing either side of me.

Jeffrey was honest-to-God hovering, his shoulders tense like when Phil had first entered the bar, and Phil was standing a little off to the side, clearly uncomfortable with the way he was trying too hard to appear comfortable.

“Daisy,” Jeffrey muttered low into my ear, reaching around to tug the door firmly for me. The bolt sometimes stuck if you didn't hold the door while you locked it, and I had a free hand I could have done it myself, but it gave Jeffrey an excuse to dip his head closer to my ear. “Be careful, okay?”

“I always am,” I replied, mostly serious as well, because I could pick up on his protectiveness front-and-center once more. He was saying this as our security guy, not as my sometimes-bed-mate.

“Just…” He hesitated, and a car pulling into the gravel lot behind us pulled our attention away from the door and our conversation.

“Damn it,” I sighed, because I recognized Hunter’s car, though it looked like Bobbi was driving. “Hunter probably forgot something.”

Elena and Bobbi waved to one another as they traded parking places near the door, and I opened my mouth to ask Bobbi if she needed me to unlock the building, but my words died in my throat when Bobbi stepped out of her car.

To my left Jeff was smiling all friendly-like, but to my right, Phil had tensed up like someone had just threatened him. Again. That awkwardness was completely gone and in it’s place was a disturbing sort of blankness.

Bobbi strode toward us in that usual confident, I-can-kick-your-ass-six-ways-to-Sunday, gait of hers, but her eyes were on Phil. I could have wrote it off as curiosity toward a stranger - Jeffrey didn't usually allow patrons to hang about the building when we were locking up - but it wasn't that.

 _She_  knew Phil, too. And it wasn't that she proclaimed it, like Jeffrey had done, but it was there in the silence, the hardness of her eye, the set of her shoulders.

And shit if that didn't put me on edge all the more. That decided it - Phil and I were going to have to have a talk.

“Heya, Daisy,” Bobbi greeted me warmly enough, her careful stoicism suddenly gone as she smiled at Jeffrey and I. “Hunter left that stupid jacket of his back in the office.” She rolled her eyes. “Says that thing is lucky.”

“I could let her in, if you'd like,” Jeffrey suggested, and I couldn't help but give him a suspicious look. I'd almost fully expected him to make an excuse to walk me home so I wouldn't have to be alone with Phil, but now it seemed like he was trying to provide me an opportunity to be alone with Phil.

I briefly remembered the sound of Phil's breathy groan, and I bit the inside of my cheek. Alone for serious conversation. Focus, Daisy.

“Are you sure?” I checked, even as I already started to hand over my keys.

“Yeah, yeah. No problem.” Jeffrey assured me, and Bobbi thanked us both profusely.

“Alright.” I hesitated as I watched Jeffrey wrangle the sticky door open. “See you on the flip side, then.”

“See you tomorrow, Daisy.” Jeffrey replied, his eyes sharp beneath his soft smile. He'd turned that into something of a threat toward Phil, who was standing close enough to have heard.

Something weird tickled the back of my neck as Jeffrey and Bobbi slipped back into the building, jokingly ragging on Hunter. For a brief, strange moment, I got the feeling they were up to something, and not in the fun, sexual sense.

But I knew neither of them were the thieving type; and anyway, all the cash was already locked away. Perhaps they were planning a prank for Hunter, or even Mack.

“Everything okay?” Phil murmured behind me, reminding me that he was still there and we were just standing around.

“Fine,” I promised with a small smile, noting as I turned to face him that Bobbi’s car was the only one in the lot. “Did you walk here?” I exclaimed, and Phil shuffled his feet as he walked with me toward the sidewalk.

“I took the bus to Main, walked from there.” He shrugged, and gave me a small, self-deprecating smile. “I did say it took me three tries to find you.”

“I didn't think you meant all _today_ ,” I murmured, feeling my cheeks grow warm.

 

 

In a scramble of discarded clothes, I found myself butt-naked on my back across my couch, Phil curled over me with just his undershirt on, one knee on the cushion and his other foot planted on the floor, giving him the stability he needed to thrust into me. I curled my legs loosely about his waist, giving him plenty of room to work while he moved over me and mouthed at my neck.

His moaning against my skin was pulling me into abandon; moments ago we had been in stilted, awkward conversation, and somehow that had turned into making out against my wall which then turned into his sheepishly pulling a condom from his wallet before I told him I was damn fine with him fucking me into the cushions of my couch.

This really should probably concern me.

Instead of feeling concerned, though, I scraped my nails through his short hair and made some encouraging noises of my own, holding onto his arm braced by my side as he started grinding his hips more determinedly.

Just like before, he made that guttural moaning sound as he came that sent white-hot arousal down my spine and settled deliciously near my groin, and I came gasping before he’d even finished.

He collapsed a bit on top of me, which I welcomed by running my hands leisurely up and down his arms and sides. I’ve noticed that he doesn’t like me touching the flat of his back above the curve of his lumbar, so I respectfully avoid that. Besides, he’s got a great ass, and he hasn’t seemed to mind yet whenever I rest my hands on it.

Our chests heaved together and I couldn’t keep the stupid smile off of my face and it’s probably really dangerous, enjoying sex with him as much as I do, but I can’t help it. It’s not even that he’s some magical sex-god or anything like that - he’s _good_  but it’s not like he magically knows all the ways to make me moan and tingle in all the right places - but he still makes me feel pretty damn fantastic afterwards.

I thought it was a fluke the first time, perhaps because it had been a while since I’d been with anyone, but no - it happened this time, too. I felt whole. Connected. I barely knew shit about this guy but whenever we’re together - sexually or otherwise - it just feels _right_. And _that's_  the part that scares me - the feeling of _connection_. It’s more than just the endorphins and the oxytocin. It’s something deeper, way deep down, the part of me that some people don’t believe exists.

My soul.

Terrifying, right?

His breathing started to even out against my ear and I realized that my lazy stroking against his skin was putting him to sleep, so I gingerly pushed him over to my right, toward the back of the couch. He was soft enough now that he easily slipped out of me, and I removed the condom from him before blindly reaching behind me for the tissue box I knew to be on the coffee table. I wrapped the used rubber in a tissue and set it on the floor before tucking myself against his warm body.

Sleeping outright was a bit of a statement I don’t think either of us wanted to make, but I was totally cool with some cuddling, and he seemed to be as well, since he snaked his arms around me and hugged me close, tangling his legs with mine a little.

We didn’t even doze, though. We lay there close enough that the tips of our noses almost touched, just staring at one another. My contentment made me feel free with some more of my choices, and I slowly traced my thumb along the lines of his face, mostly focusing on the corners of his eyes.

I’ll admit it outright, now - his eyes are the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. Would I tell him that anytime soon? Hell no. But I would silently appreciate them in this moment.

He was looking at me again like he had that very first time we met. Like he was staring into the heart of me. It made me think that he felt this weird connection, too, and it sobered me enough to make my next rather brash decision.

It was low, to do this right after we’ve just had sex, but I wasn’t sure when I would see him again, and I needed to know.

“How do you know Bobbi?” I made sure to keep my tone both casual and resolute - I knew for a fact that he was at least familiar with her, so he couldn’t argue that much. Jeffrey was one thing - but Bobbi as well was just too far to be mere coincidence.

He looked incredibly guilty, now, which made my hackles rise a bit. I immediately started mentally going through my packing plan, debating on how long it would take me to get out of this town. As my thoughts focused, my hand drifted away from his face, but surprisingly Phil didn’t get off the couch and start gathering his clothes. He did push himself up into a more comfortable seated position though and stared forward for a long minute, and I sat up as well, shifting away slightly to give him some space.

“What do you know about this new up and coming gang, cropping up in various cities all over the country?” Phil asked me, and I raised my eyebrow at him, brain wracking for connections here.

“Call themselves Hydra?” I clarified, my tone undeniably mocking on the name. Hopefully he wasn’t a part of it, because I was probably about to write my own death sentence if he was, “Bunch of self-righteous pricks.”

“You’ve had run-ins with them?” Phil asked with concern, looking at me now. He seemed like he was terrified for my well-being, which surprised me no little amount. He still didn’t know much about me, so his level of concern told me that he must know quite a bit about this gang.

“Not many,” I shrugged, playing it off. For a brief moment I found myself wishing I still smoked; I’d be lighting one up right about now, if I hadn’t quit two years ago. That craving didn’t come so often any more, and I shook it away. “One of ‘em tried to get me to join up. Spent a good couple of weeks at it.”

“He was stalking you?” Phil demanded with a raised eyebrow, and I returned the look with much more sarcasm.

“Says the guy who walks at least three miles out of his way to run into me on a street corner? Who spends his entire Sunday morning walking around to different bars until he finds mine?”

He tinged red, and then his muscles tensed before he reached for his trousers. Shit, he was clamming up.

“You uh, you know where I'm staying, huh?” He didn’t sound angry about it - in fact, he sounded as if he’d expected that to happen, so I was a little confused as to why he was deciding to leave because of it.

“I’ve been taking care of myself since I was sixteen,” I told him, and maybe I shouldn’t, but I really wanted him to stay a little longer. “You think I’m dumb enough to just keep meeting up with some stranger on a street corner without trying to find _something_  out about him?” I paused, then added more softly, and a bit flirty, “Besides, _you_  know where _I_  live.”

He paused, seemed to accept that, but finished buttoning up his pants before he sat back down on the couch next to me. He didn’t move to put on any more of his clothes, so I took that as a momentary win.

Now that he was half-dressed, though, I felt a little uncomfortable in my nakedness, so I grabbed what was nearest to me and slipped it over my arms. His button-up. I closed just a few of the buttons enough to be decent; I didn’t want him thinking I was going to steal it or anything.

Even if I did, he still had that undershirt on, so it wasn’t like he was walking out of here completely shirtless.

Then I realized I was staring at his arms again, so I curled my knees beneath my butt and settled my side against the back of the couch, propping my elbow atop the cushion so I could cradle my head while I looked at him. At his face, not his arms. I had to focus, here.

“Why did he want you to join up?” Phil asked softly, and his tone wasn’t suspicious at all, but still I hesitated while I gauged him carefully.

“I don’t know, he fancied himself in love with me.” I shrugged. No, I wasn’t going to tell Phil about my other ‘hobbies’. Not yet.

Phil nodded as if that made sense (and what did _that_  reaction mean?) and was silent for another long moment before he finally answered my original question. Well, answered it in his own way. I started making the connections later, after he left.

“Hydra aren’t just small-time, at all. They’re all over the world.” Phil told me, and I couldn’t help but snort in disbelief.

“They’re goons!” I protested, entertained by the thought of my old stalker being some sort of mafia member.

“Some of them are,” Phil conceded, but he had a darkness about him now, and I knew for a fact that he was remembering something pretty horrible. I was very familiar with handling memories like that. “And some of them are seriously dangerous.” He looked at me directly, now, that concern present in his eyes again. “They are why I’m here. I’ve been tracking who I think is one of their suppliers.”

“Suppliers? Are they like, the cartel?” I hoped my questions sounded innocent enough, and not too ‘private detective’ -like.

“Not drugs, not that I know of,” Phil shook his head, and I couldn’t quite place it, but something about his expression told me that his statement wasn’t quite true. “This is a weapons guy. Technology.”

I couldn’t help but wiggle forward a bit as the adrenalin of discovering new information coursed through me. He glanced down where his shirt had ridden up a bit on my thighs but then his eyes were back on my face, and he looked pained.

“Why did they want you, Daisy?” His tone mirrored mine when I had asked him about Bobbi, and my blood seemed to freeze inside of my veins. He knew something about me, something that I haven’t told him, and all of my inner alarms were screaming at me now.

Quite suddenly - and _fuck_ , I should have made these connections a hella lot earlier - I realized what he was.

“Holy—shit,” I breathed, drifting to my feet and slowly backing away from the couch. He immediately shot to his feet as well, his hands at his sides and his shoulders back in an obviously non-threatening gesture.

“I’m not with them, I swear, I’m not Hydra,” He hurriedly promised me, and I knew that. I knew he wasn’t with them, I never would have thought he was with them. Just as I knew he wasn’t a cop, or a soldier, or FBI, or CIA.

It was much, much worse than that.

“You’re SHIELD.”

I was screwed.


	5. Chapter 5

SHIELD was the point of the pyramid of top-secret organizations. The secretest of secret groups. When it comes to declassified information, the general American public even learns something about the FBI or the CIA. Thing is, _nothing_ is _ever_ declassified from SHIELD. They’re more hush-hush than Homeland Security, Special Forces, Seal Teams - all I know, and this was because I practically got myself imprisoned to find it, is that SHIELD is involved in some kind of high-end technology space travel. A little like NASA, except a whole lot more focused on defense and warfare than on exploration and discovery, if you catch my drift.

SHIELD wasn’t directly my enemy, but they were at the top of my ‘can’t-find-me’ list. They’re so big-time, though, that I honestly figured _I_ wasn’t on any of _their_  lists. But I should have guessed, as soon as I saw this guy in the suit, _I should have guessed_.

And now it was seven p.m. and I was standing barefoot in my kitchen, brewing a pot of coffee for a SHIELD agent.

I was wearing a shirt owned by a SHIELD agent.

Fuck, I’d had sex, more than once, with a SHIELD agent.

Shit, shit, shit.

Phil quietly leaned against the counter opposite me, against the counter we’d had sex on the first time. I tried not to think about that when I turned back ‘round to face him as we waited for the coffee machine to do it’s thing.

“What do you know about me?” I asked him softly. I didn’t want to sound accusatory and send him packing. I was lucky he hadn’t left yet already.

“Not much,” He admitted, “Not really more than what you’ve told me, anyway.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets, and I was beginning to think that was a tell of his. “I tried looking you up. You know, I don’t make a habit of hanging out with strangers, either.”

Had to give him that one.

“I find it curious that there’s no history of you before you moved here and started working at Hope’s.” He _said_  he found it curious, but his tone was casual. He wasn’t standing there demanding answers from me, like I was from him.

I found that frustrating.

“You mentioned you’ve been taking care of yourself since you were sixteen?” He said, when I hadn’t spoken. “No, uh, no parents?” He asked, and I knew that was only one of the many possibilities that he had considered.

“Never had any to begin with,” I replied more easily than it felt. “Well, I mean, I imagine I had some at _some point_ , but all I remember is the orphanage.” He nodded; he’d thought of that, too, it seemed. “Anyway, I was in and out until I decided to strike it on my own.”

“The Rising Tide,” He nodded again, and I narrowed my eyes at him. He immediately blushed a little and fidgeted. “That was all I was able to find out. You used to be a member of the Rising Tide.”

I waited for more, but that was all he said. He still didn’t sound accusatory, which surprised me. One of the Tide’s biggest goals was to oust SHIELD, figure out what they were really doing behind all those closed doors. Big surprise; we hadn’t been able to figure out much. And eventually, I tired of it. I’m great with computers and I like the work, but actively hiding from the law just gets damn exhausting. Plus, I wasn’t about taking bribes, or blackmailing people, and the Tide seemed in a fast downward slope in that direction.

So I ‘ghosted’ myself once again, became Daisy Johnson, moved here.

And I’ve grown rather attached to this life, even after living years of telling myself never to get attached to anything. So I wasn’t just going to roll over and disappear, not this time. I was going to talk this out with Phil, and see if we could make some kind of deal, or something. I want to stay.

“The ‘Tide took care of me when I first… well, I learned a lot about how to live on my own. And…” Well, I might as well, and see what happens. “I’m good with computers.” He blinked owlishly at me, and I added, “Like, _really_  good.”

“Do you think that’s why Hydra wanted you?” Phil asked worriedly, and I knew I was gaping at him but I couldn’t help it.

“That’s what you’re concerned about?”

“They’re dangerous, Daisy!” He insisted, as if I didn’t know that.

“You’re SHIELD.” I told him, as if he needed reminding. He furrowed his brow at me in a very clear ‘so what?’ gesture. “A hacker ex-member of the Rising Tide doesn’t raise any alarm bells for you?”

His hesitation told me that I was on the money. Apparently, he seemed to be ignoring those alarm bells, though.

 _Why_?

“Tell me something,” I requested as I turned back toward the coffee machine. It was almost finished brewing, but I also wanted to hide my face from him as I asked my next question. I didn’t want him to know how invested I was in his answer. “When we ran into one another out on the street, that first night - was that planned? Have you been — ”

“Like I said before, there’s nothing on you prior to you buying this apartment, getting hired at Hope’s Pub.” Phil interrupted gently. “Meeting you was… unexpected.”

Yes, he felt it too. That confirmation made me feel comforted, in a way.

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” I told him while I fetched two mugs from the cabinet above the coffee maker. “And yet here we are, with more than one thing in common between us.” He made a noise of agreement. “You’re after Hydra. Hydra was after me, sort of, for a bit. You know Jeffrey, perhaps from his army days. You know Bobbi, and whatever that is it’s ongoing - and don’t tell me otherwise, because that’s just insulting.”

“You’re good a reading people,” He admired, mildly embarrassed, and I glanced over my shoulder to give him a wry look.

“You’re poker face isn’t all that great.” I replied, and he pouted a little. I turned back toward the coffee and poured our drinks - now was not the time to remember just how cute I thought he was. “Weirder still; I’ve lived here for just over two years now. I chose to find employment at Mack’s place pretty much out of a hat. Both Jeffrey and Bobbi’s guy Hunter have been working there long before me. And suddenly you come along, miles out of the way, and we have this — ”

I didn’t want to say it out loud. It was damn freaky, and voicing it seemed dangerous, somehow.

“I swear, Daisy, you were a complete stranger to me the first time we met. I was just out walking, trying to clear my head.” Phil promised. “Though…I will admit…” His hesitancy warned me just before he stepped closer to me, his hand sliding questioningly over my waist. I could feel the warmth of his body near my back, through the material of his shirt, and when I didn’t push him away, the weight of his hand settled more heavily against my side. “Every meeting after that wasn’t random.”

His breath touched the back of my neck and I shivered. Certain parts of my brain started suggesting more fun things we could be doing right now, instead of interrogating one another, but I tried to get those parts to shut up. I twisted within his half-embrace and held his mug of coffee between us, pointedly.

He looked at it for a moment, but stepped back, and removed his hand from my side to grasp the proffered cup and lean his hips back against the opposite counter once more.

“So you’re following after this Hydra guy,” I followed up on his earlier statement. “You here without a partner? Or is Bobbi somehow your partner?” I blew across the top of my coffee, wanting to cool it down faster so I could start drinking it.

The day had been long, and would only grow longer. At this rate, I doubted getting any sleep before my next shift at Hope’s. Even if Phil did eventually leave at a relatively decent hour tonight, I knew for a fact I’d stay awake trying to dig up whatever I could online.

“Bobbi and I… are both keeping an eye on Hydra.” Phil replied in a bit of a non-answer. It _did_  confirm that she was SHIELD, too, though, and _that_  definitely made sense to me after thinking of all the mysteriousness about her.

“ _Two_  SHIELD agents in my life. Fuck.” I breathed to myself, and Phil raised his eyebrow curiously over the edge of his mug as he drank.

Not cute, not cute, _focus_  Daisy.

“ _Should_ I be more concerned about you?” Phil wondered teasingly, and I pressed my lips together tightly. “Wait, don’t - Daisy, I promise what we say between us _stays_  between us.”

“Don’t want the boss to catch you fraternizing with the enemy?” I returned, and he looked almost a bit insulted by that.

“You’re not the enemy, Daisy,” He argued softly. “Hydra is our enemy.”

“Why the hell is that?” I cocked my hip against the counter behind me, crossing my ankles together as I cradled the warm mug against my chest. The weather was only just starting to cool, but my apartment was always drafty once the sun went down. “Some kind of post-modern space race?”

“That’s classified.” He replied, with a twitch of his eyebrow that, I’m ashamed to admit, travelled right to my core. Bastard.

“What _can_  you tell me about yourself?” I asked, pretending to be unaffected by his sudden rather cocky charm.

“Not much than what we’ve already talked about,” He admitted unfortunately, looking down into his now half-full mug as he tapped his fingers against the sides of the ceramic. “Is this… is this Grumpy Cat?” He realized, turning it so he could look at the artwork on the side. I smirked at him and shrugged. He seemed pleased by it, though, and took another long drink before he continued speaking. “You know that I work for SHIELD, now… you know that you can’t tell anyone? Don’t even discuss it with Bobbi or Mace.” His eyebrow was shifted in a warning look, now.

“Mace, huh?” I wrinkled my nose at that. “He’s always been Jeffrey, or Jeff, to me.”

“That’s just work,” Phil shrugged, “We mostly refer to one another by our last names. Or code names.”

“You guys have _code names_?” I couldn’t help but squeal, shifting forward in interest. Okay, _cool_. Phil looked both amused and mildly embarrassed.

“Yes, and no, I’m not telling you mine.” He paused briefly. “Or Jeffrey’s.”

“Aw, come on,” I whined, mostly teasing, adding more saucily, “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,”

His eyes dipped down the front of my body for a moment before he looked back into my own, something a little more hungry in his gaze.

“Classified, sorry.” He shrugged, pulling his mug back up to his mouth again. “So you did change your name when you, what, left the Rising Tide? You’re name isn’t really Daisy?” He sounded a bit disappointed about that.

“It is,” I assured him, my tone back to normal now though I couldn’t get his hungry expression out of my brain. “It is Daisy, now. Legal and everything.” He nodded and looked pleased to hear this.

“Born and raised Phil.” He told me. “Well, Phillip actually, but very few people call me that anymore.”

“Phillip,” I mused, trying it out on my tongue, doing my best to ignore how he perked up a little. “Doesn’t sound much like a spy’s name.”

“I’m not a spy!” He laughed, and I rolled my eyes at him.

“Poker face, Phillip. Remind me to help you work on that sometime.” I grinned just before I finished off my coffee, turning to set the mug back on the counter.

“Alright,” He huffed. “How did you figure out where I’m staying, if I may ask? Poker face aside, I _am_  pretty great at losing a tail.”

“Yeah, I used the security cameras around town.” I admitted, gesturing my finger in a circle in the air. He gave me a surprised look and put his mug down as well. It sounded empty when it landed on the counter, but he didn’t request more.

“That must’ve taken hours.” He was also impressed, and I smirked.

“Figured you might be worth it,” I replied cheekily.

“You really are good with computers, huh?” He mused thoughtfully, and I narrowed my eyes a little.

Much as I wanted to, could I _really_  trust this guy to keep my identity from his employers?

“One of my many talents,” I replied loftily, and stepped across the kitchen closer to him, making sure to swing my hips a little. Distracting him with sex was another low move, but also…

That craving I felt for him hadn’t subsiding a single bit after hearing who he worked for, why he was here. Perhaps all of my self-preservation skills were finally all used up.

“Oh?” He considered lightly, giving me an innocently curious look even as his hands drifted toward my waist again. “What are some of your others?”

“Well,” I pretended to think about it while I trailed my fingers down the front of his tee, admiring the gentle curve of muscle. However old he was, he was pretty damn fit. Which I knew already, really, considering… Focus, Daisy. “I’ve been told I mix a mean drink.”

“Do you now?” He replied, watching me as my hand drifted lower. “Maybe I’ll have to stop by the bar again, try one of these drinks. Which would you recommend?” His voice sounded more breathy the further my hand moved.

“Hm, for you?” I looked thoughtfully at his face as I brushed my palm against the front of his trousers, just briefly. “Something fruity. With lots of little umbrellas.”

His eyes sparkled when he laughed, those little lines creasing in the corners both there and at his mouth. It made me want to kiss him.

There were still so many questions to be answered - hell, there were twice as many as before, now - but after a very serious half-a-second of deciding, I figured the questions could wait.

By what he’s told me so far, by the way he was looking at me right now, and because I was also damn good at reading people, I knew that Phil wouldn’t be leaving me in the dust anytime soon.

So I kissed him, while I palmed him again, massaging the bulge in his trousers while he slipped his tongue into my mouth. He tasted like coffee, and I decided that coffee-plus-Phil was pretty damn amazing. Also, dubious sex-god status aside, what he did with that tongue of his was also pretty damn amazing. And maybe it was because he felt more comfortable with me now, more free to take some control over the ‘interlude’, or whatever; he was kissing me with even more desperation than he had earlier this evening.

Deft fingers unbuttoned his shirt and slid along my skin beneath it, exploring leisurely while I pulled him free through the front of his trousers, the slide of my own hand following along at his pace.

When I eventually knelt to my knees, though, he grasped my shoulders and brought my attention back up to his face.

“Only if you let me return the favor afterwards,” He half-pleaded, mostly distracted by the touch of my hand, his tongue darting against his lips as he looked down at me.

“You want to?” I blurted with surprise - the only other guy I’ve been with who actually seemed to enjoy oral was Jeffrey, and he was sweet and all, but it wasn’t his strength. For a guy to ask for it like this kind of threw me off for a second.

“Daisy, I’ve wanted to go down on you since the moment you walked me up here the first time.” Phil told me seriously, and I didn’t know what to say to that as my body immediately reacted to the idea, so I just moaned and straightened up so I could kiss him on the mouth again. I made sure to make it good, until he was moaning too, and then I knelt again.

 

 

He came right there in the kitchen, again, but we kissed our way back to the couch before he settled his face between my legs and “returned the favor”, as he called it.

And then we slept, spooned together on the couch, because screw it - I was already in way over my head, anyway.


End file.
